


whispers of earl grey

by wildenessat221b



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Crying, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, South Downs, a single very brief instance of self-destructive behaviour, but it's not that big of a thing, i guess, implied mental health issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 18:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19706950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildenessat221b/pseuds/wildenessat221b
Summary: The apocalypse was supposed to change the universe.It didn't.A cup of Earl Grey tea came far, far closer.(crowley struggles after the averted apocalypse, until he doesn't anymore.)





	whispers of earl grey

"Angel?"

"Hmm?"

Crowley is biting the nail on his left thumb, because the immediate surrounding area has run out of skin to pick at.

"Did you know me? Before I... You know... Sauntered vaguely downwards?"

Aziraphale looks up from the dusty tome his nose had been buried in and blinks. He removes his glasses and expels Crowley's name in a whisper of a breath, which Crowley's next words ride the tail of.

"Please, Angel." The utterance is quiet, and the capital 'A' distinct in a way that it hasn't been before.

It is a week after the day after the apocalypse hadn't happened, it is a week after the hellfire and the bath water and the Ritz and the bus ride and the ice creams and the _fucking rubber duck._ It is six days after Crowley had collapsed into bed and tried to feel light and free, but had instead felt like he was drowning in a flood of _absolutely biblical_ proportions, and one day after he'd crawled out again and arrived sheepishly on Aziraphale's doorstep in his pyjamas. It is nine hours since they had begun drinking, four hours since they had decided to become sober and three hours and thirty seven minutes since Aziraphale had started oh so subtly watching Crowley out of the corner of his eye while pretending to be interested in Dickens' 'Hard Times.'

He closes the book and his eyes, both gently, and runs his tongue along his bottom lip in search of an answer like a blind man who's dropped his cane.

Old habits die hard - he's an angel even without a side - so he settles for the truth.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

Crowley draws his knees up to under his chin.

"Don't remember," he tells them.

"No?"

"No."

Aziraphale allows the air to settle around them for a moment. Somehow that feels safer.

"Would you like me to-"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

Aziraphale nods slowly, and reopens the book. He looks down and the words blur together.

"...okay."

\--------

Soon after, Crowley's face folds into embarrassment, cheeks reddening and lips settling into a pinched half-pout. He dons his sunglasses, grins at Aziraphale and informs him that Mr Platt-Furgolf has unexpectedly been called away on business, so he and his wife can unfortunately no longer make it to the RSC's production of 'Twelfth Night.' (Crowley always liked the funny ones.)

"Most unfortunate," Aziraphale agrees with a solemn nod. And then he grins back.

Aziraphale hopes three things throughout the course of the performance. The first is that he laughs in all the right places. Shakespeare was more Crowley's thing, in that Crowley had of course, written a sizeable chunk of it. The second is that the lady to his left doesn't notice that he somehow never manages to run out of popcorn, in spite of the gargantuan effort it seems he is making to. The third is that Crowley's smile is genuine and that behind his sunglasses, his eyes are just as bright as the canines that snag delicately on his bottom lip whenever they are exposed.

Which is two in one, really.

\--------

"Thank you for a wonderful night, my dear."

Rain is pattering gently on the roof of the Bentley.

"Pleasure. Anyway, I owe you one for... Something. Probably."

Aziraphale chuckles.

"Probably indeed. Although I'd say that given what we've endured over the years, we can probably stop counting now."

Crowley's eyebrows raise above his sunglasses, in what may have been amusement, and he hums a contented affirmative.

"Well wouldn't that be nice."

"Won't that be nice," Azirapahle corrects, "Modals don't apply to us anymore. Like you said, we don't have a side. Can exist just as we please."

Aziraphale smiles and expects a beam in return, but instead Crowley's eyebrows begin to droop and the previously upturned corner of his mouth wilts. Both minutely, but minutely is enough for six-thousand years of friendship. Aziraphale opens his mouth to ask what the matter is, but Crowley snaps his features back into their rightful places.

"So, you off then?"

"Yes," he says, regretting the answer even as it leaves his mouth, "See you again soon."

"Course, course," Crowley waves a flippant hand in the air. "Don't let the bookworms bite."

Aziraphale smiles gently.

"Haven't yet. Goodnight."

Crowley gives a little wave as the door clicks shut behind him.

Aziraphale removes his coat and hangs it on the rack, just above the (very 1950s) radiator so that it will dry by morning. (Miracling away the damp works _technically_ , but the damp smell is somehow always more potent.) He flicks on the desk light, and rests the needle of his record player on the disk. It begins its dance and Aziraphale attempts to feel like a man at ease.

He glances outside. Crowley hasn't moved.

Through the haze of the slight drizzle, he makes out the figure of Crowley slumped over the steering wheel, head resting in the crook of his elbow. Aziraphale considers for a moment that perhaps he had simply fallen asleep very quickly - rarely indulging in sleep himself he _didn't quite get it._ But then he unfolds himself. Opens his mouth in what surely is a shout and slams his forehead into the steering wheel. Aziraphale jumps at the noise of impact he can't hear, and considers with solid, ice cold horror the utterly _inconsiderable_ possibility that Crowley had managed to discorporate himself. It thaws slightly as the figure raises and rests its head on the driver's side window, but not much.

He makes up his mind and the rain suddenly becomes a lot heavier.

"Crowley?" He calls, as he scuttles across the street towards the Bentley. He raps three times on the window and Crowley jumps away, before winding it down.

"What?" It is somewhere between embarrassed and annoyed, without entirely being either. His face settles into a frown that is on the edge of being dazed.

"I don't think it's safe for you to drive in this weather."

"In this..." Crowley trails off in bemusement as he peers over Aziraphale's shoulder.

"Well, I assumed that was why you were waiting? For the storm to pass? Although I don't think," he says innocently, "That the rain looks likely to abate any time soon."

"Of course I was. Waiting for the... For the..."

"Why don't you stay the night? I know you adore that blasted machine but it's hardly warm now, is it?"

"Well..." Crowley consideres this, "Not for my uh... Cold blood it's not."

"Precisely." Aziraphale opens the door, and holds out his hand like a gentlemanly chauffeur. "Come in, dear."

Crowley gazes at the hand for a long minute, as the rain bounces off Aziraphale and patters on the pavement.

And then he takes it.

\--------

The bookshop acquires a third floor in a _miraculous_ amount of time.

The third floor acquires a double bed made up with soft sheets, a stylish dresser, a beside lamp and a healthy spider-plant in a _miraculous_ amount of time.

And _miraculously_ , (although this one is significantly more metaphorical) a demon allows an angel to rest the palm of his hand in the curve of his back where he lies beneath the sheets and gently run his thumb up and down... And up and down.

Somewhat ironically given his make-up, Aziraphale is braver in the dark.

"You could stay here, you know. Forever."

Crowley expels a long breath. It diffuses into the space left behind by the lengthy pause that follows. Then he swallows.

"Not here. Not forever."

He reaches and switches on the bedside lamp. He is braver in the light. Brave enough to shift so that he is facing Aziraphale, and to grasp the hand that had been on his back in his own before it retreats.

"But _here_ ," he whispers, giving the hand a hard, quick squeeze, "Forever sounds wonderful."

Aziraphale doesn't, of course, need to breathe.

 _But he feels fairly sure that at that moment, he couldn't if he tried_.

\--------

A morning marked by brilliant sunshine. Two cups of steaming tea. A remarkably thin computer without any wire that Crowley apparently knows what to do with.

"It's in the Sussex Downs. Old. Big. Catacomby. Lots of room for books. Lots of room for whatever. Cake shop down the road. Big garden. The size of the plants I could frighten into submission there, Angel. Ours if we want it."

Aziraphale's eyes are wide. His mouth is opening and closing like a goldfish.

"Lot to take in, I know. You have a lifetime to make up your mind. And you weren't keen on Alpha Centuri, I get that, I do, only this seemed like the second best thing. It's an absurd idea really, I know, but we've been given this absurd chance to do absurd things and I thought perhaps you might want to get away from London for a while, I know I do and it just seemed convenient that if we were on the same page, we should maybe do it together, just for convenience sake I mean, obviously like I said and-"

"Let's go tomorrow."

Crowley very nearly falls out of his chair.

"I... Pardon?"

"Tomorrow. Let's go tomorrow."

"Tomorrow. Right." Crowley blinks slowly and takes a sip of his tea. "Tickety-boo, I suppose."

"Hmm."

And as though it's nothing, as though he'd been doing it for six thousand years, Aziraphale leans over and kisses the Earl Grey off Crowley's lips.

It changes the world in a way that the impending Armageddon hadn't managed.

\--------

The garden is taken up by flora - crawling ivy, blooming roses, vibrant peonies and sprawling geraniums, all of which are scared out of their wits.

Two of the three reception rooms are taken up by books - classics and first editions and editions saved from fires and signed copies, all of which are treated with supreme reverence.

The kitchen is taken up by gadgets - blenders and processors and whatever-makers and whatever-shakers, all of which are destined to stay in their boxes.

And for almost the whole of the first week, the bed is taken up by the cottage’s two new inhabitants, who have discovered the simple pleasure of basking in each other's body heat.

\--------

A dark night. A demon drifting off to sleep. An angel combing his fingers through his hair, his breath ghosting over his nose. A whispered question.

"Why did you ask that night. About before your... Saunter?"

Crowley's eyes open, golden in the low light. They look sad. He smiles.

"Fall. You mean my Fall."

Aziraphale nods slowly, though regrettably, for there is no other answer to give. Crowley sighs deeply.

"I was scared. Didn't know who I was supposed to be after everything that happened. Sort of wanted to know who I was before, see if I could... Get it back. Chickened out and decided I didn't want to know."

"Oh."

"But now I know. Who I'm supposed to be now." He shuffles upward onto his elbow and cups Aziraphale's cheek in his hand. "Half of whatever we've got going on here."

Azirapahle smiles softly and lays his hand over Crowley's. "Well, you know how I feel about trying to interpret 'supposeds.' But yes, this certainly feels right to me."

"And you're the expert on that."

"Indeed."

They look at each other, for a long, long moment, before Crowley shuffles back beneath the sheets. His eyes slide shut, but before he sleeps, Aziraphale takes his hand.

"For the record, you weren't all that different. You were witty. You were strong. You were kind."

"And... Us?" he asks it with his eyes closed, because he doesn't feel very brave. "Were we... This?"

Aziraphale shakes his head softly, then realises that Crowley can't see him. "No. Admittedly... Close, on my part but-"

"No cigar?"

"No cigar."

"Hmm." The sound breaks in the middle, and a single tear trickles onto the pillow. "I remember the stars. I remember hanging the stars."

Azirapahle wipes away the track that lines his face.

"They're still there, my love. And still every bit as beautiful."

And Crowley makes a choking noise, shuffles so that his face is buried in Aziraphale's chest and cries and cries and cries.

\--------

A delivery arrives at the cottage the next day, express from the John Lewis children's home decor section.

It is a packet of plastic glow in the dark stars.

"You hung them once, my dear. Do it again."

And from that day onwards, as far forward into forever as one would care to imagine, a cottage in the South Downs which might as well be the whole universe is alight with stars.

\--------

Fin.

\--------

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks ever so much for reading! Comments would mean the absolute world, if you have a moment to leave one. 
> 
> (On the off chance that you're a reader of Human Nature and are wondering where the update is, idiot girl (me) left her memory stick with the remaining chapters on it at school over the weekend. Whoopsies. See you on Tuesday, Human Nature readers. If you're there.)


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